


Nicola

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: All-American Rejects
Genre: F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Sexswap, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-23
Updated: 2011-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All I remember of my plans for this are: Tyson is a famous TV actor, he and Nick meet somehow, they get together. I didn't even have a title, so it gets the filename for one *hands* Sex-and-genderswap; Nick is a cis woman in this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nicola

Nick hated being addressed as Nicola, but school administration is what school administration is, so for the first semester she got Nicola wherever she went, until she convinced people — except her tutors, because it would kind of be weird to be called Nick by them — to get her name right. And spell it with a k.

She met Robyn a few weeks in, through her roommate, and instantly became sort of awkward because Robyn was _beautiful_ and an English major and talked about working with poor kids and was _beautiful_ and Nick found it maybe a little hard to breathe around her sometimes. Robyn had a guy she was kind of seeing, but she kept talking about open relationships and some free love hippie shit and all Nick thought was _Yeah you know what that kind of makes sense_. Robyn would come over to hang out, help Nick a little with her assignments sometimes (okay, so mostly she just poked Nick in the side until she actually _did_ her assignments, but that totally counted as helping) and they’d talk about life and movies and music and the bands Nick was in. She just couldn’t seem to find a band that wanted to stay together more than a few months.

It was Robyn’s sort-of-boyfriend who introduced her to Mike. “There’s this guy I know,” Richard said, lacing and unlacing his fingers with Robyn’s in what was probably an unconscious movement Nick tried hard to ignore, “he’s starting up a band. They need a guitarist, I could hook you up.”

“Thanks,” she said, ungritting her teeth. She liked Richard, really, but Robyn didn’t smile at her like that and it was annoying.

The first thing she heard when she walked into the bar she was supposed to be meeting Richard in was a laugh. She looked over to where the sound had come from, and saw Richard talking to two guys; one had short brown hair and a wide smile, and the other had kind of long dirty-blond hair and was still laughing. She made her way over and waved awkwardly.

“Hey! This is Nick, the girl I was telling you about,” Richard beamed, putting an arm around her. “Nick, this is Mike,” pointing to the guy with the smile, “and this is Chris,” pointing to the guy with the hair.

“So Richard tells us you play guitar,” Chris opened with, face still full of mirth. Nick felt a little less nervous.

“Yeah, I play all sorts, but mostly guitar. You guys looking for someone?”

“We’re meant to be playing a show tomorrow night, the guy we were _supposed_ to have bailed on us,” Chris explained, angling his body a little more towards her. They were about the same height, and Nick was warming to him quite a lot, actually. “Hate to put you on the spot, but could you pick up some songs by tomorrow night?”

“Sure, I could do that,” Nick nodded. She could try, at least. “What do I have to work with? Demo, chords, what?”

“We’re not that organised yet,” Mike piped up. He talked around the smile. “But I’ll show you. I play rhythm,” he added as an afterthought.

“Drums,” Chris supplied as Nick turned to him and opened her mouth to ask. She nodded.

“Me too. High school band, I mean.” There always has to be one moment, Nick figured, when you make a fool of yourself in front of new people. They didn’t seem to notice, though; Chris just nodded, smiling.

“Awesome! Now we just need to stop Andrew and Les from leaving, and we will actually have a band,” he said to Mike.

“Imagine that,” Mike grinned.

Nick spent most of the rest of that day and a chunk of the next with Mike, learning the songs. There were some covers Nick had known the guitar parts to since she was thirteen, and some original songs that turned out to be not all that hard to learn, so by the time it came to a full band rehearsal she had her bits pretty much down. Mike was a great guy to hang out with, and so was Chris, and as soon as they discovered Nick didn’t know much punk, Chris promised to lend her all his CDs. “And you need to hear Mike’s,” he added, “he’s got like, everything.”

Andrew, the bassist, didn’t talk much, and every few songs Nick would want to go over and correct a note, but he was okay. Les, the singer, was kind of obnoxious and hit on Nick the moment he saw her.

“Well hey,” he came over, wearing a toothy leer that made Nick want to back into the amp. “Nobody told me we’d have a hot chick in the band.”

She smiled weakly and said, “Hi.”

Mike smacked Les on the back of his head. “Play nice. She’s a college freshman and I will beat you down if you try anything.”

Les held his hands up. “I was just saying! She’s hot! That’s a compliment, darlin’.” The leer was back. Nick resisted the urge to kick him in the nuts.

“Congratulations, you have eyes.” She turned back to her guitar and mostly ignored him for the rest of rehearsal. He threw her annoyed looks several times, but she just played to Mike and smiled sweetly at Les whenever he looked like he wanted to ‘accidentally’ trip her. Which he tried three times, but Nick had spent her single-digit years going to ballet lessons and knew how to dodge while keeping her balance.

She stayed away from him as much as she could on the tiny stage that night. Mike bumped into her several times, but she just went with it, and ended up almost dancing with him in the small space. When they came off the stage and went to the bar, Chris pulled her aside and said, “If you need any backing up, if any guys start bothering you, holler.”

“Thanks,” she smiled at him, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Want to buy me a drink?”

Half way through the night, after accepting drinks from a bunch of guys and getting sort of really quite hammered, Chris announced he was cutting her off and taking her home. She didn’t remember that in the morning, though; she woke up, feeling like _ass_ , and all she could remember was accepting drink after drink, guys hitting on her, and then nothing.

Around early afternoon time, when she finally stopped feeling like the world was a horrible, horrible place and it hated her as much as she hated it, she called Robyn. “Does Richard have Mike’s number? I have no idea how I got home last night, I want to check I didn’t do anything embarrassing.”

“I was about to call you, Chris is here. He took you home, wanted to know if you were okay.”

“Oh. Tell him thanks. Also, tell him I am never drinking again.”

Robyn sounded like she was smiling as, muffled, she relayed the message. There was another voice, and then Chris came on the line. “You okay?”

“Never again,” Nick repeated.

“I’m coming over,” was Chris’s answer.  



End file.
